Excerpt
from the Spiritual Energy article by Mark Matousek in the
July 2003 issue of Oprah Winfrey's
O magazine.
Have
you ever been in the presence of something so lively,
engaged, selfless, and utterly radiant, it's left you
speechless? Mark Matousek taps into the world's
greatest renewable power source.
Photo by
Christopher Bucklow
A
few months before he died, 83-year-old Spyros Sathi, [Dr.
Stylianos Atteshlis - DASKALOS] widely regarded as the
greatest Christian mystic of modern times, agreed to Sit
down and talk with me in his first American interview. Known
simply as the Daskalos (“teacher”), this powerful Cypriot
healer had, I’d heard, once frightened a group of hard-nosed
reporters by rocking a lame child in his arms and setting
him down a few-minutes later on legs that were suddenly
functional. The night before our interview I’d studied the
Daskalos from a distance, holding, forth on a New York stage
strewn with flowers; now, stepping into-his hotel room with
a photographer, I had no idea what to expect.
The moment he rose—six feet five in a
cardigan sweater—and took my hand, all my apprehension
disappeared. Something about this towering man—aglow-in
kindness, a welcoming ease —put me at ease, too, and for the
next hour I questioned him about how it felt to have
his powers. I barely
understood his responses (you try interviewing a mystic),
but when I stood up to say goodbye, I was so light-headed—so
light all over— that I had to sit down to steady myself The
Daskalos smiled and watched me intently; then without any
forethought, I asked him about a painful situation in my
life. My host leaned forward, took my wrist between his
fingers, and said, “You are good.” Three simple words—just
that—bearing no conscious link to my question; yet hearing
them I wanted to weep, as if Spyros Sathi [Daskalos]had somehow heard,
underneath the surface question, a deeper con-fusion, a
covert hunger, a secret longing to be blessed. The
photographer happened to capture this moment, the Daskalos
gently touching my arm, grinning at me as I beamed back at
him with the same sort of lit-up expression. In the
photograph, which I treasure, my face looks like a
hundred-watt bulb.
I’VE NEVER BEEN A PERSON OF FAITH.
In matters of spirit, I’m from
Missouri—fascinated but skeptical. Were it not for meeting
the Daskalos and a handful of other exceptional teachers in
my travels as a writer and seeker, I would surely doubt that
such a thing as spiritual energy existed — not as a
miraculous fluke but a natural gift accessible to all of us.
Like harmony, symmetry and even genius, this invisible force
is a mystery whose uplifting power must be encountered to be
believed. Once that happens, revealing a glimpse of our
awesome potential, it can never again be denied.
[See
another article
about Daskalos
written by Mark
called
THE TEACHING ]
